Jewish Broadcasting Service hosts a hot-tub of xenophobia and Islamophobia, as Jonathan Mark of the Jewish Week says immigration is the “nurtured baby issue” of the Democratic Party and Tlaib, Omar, and Ocasio-Cortez host districts of “new” people who come from “anti-semitic” countries, and Thane Rosenbaum of NYU says that 70 to 90 percent of Muslim Arabs believe in sharia law and therefore don’t belong in a pluralistic, constitutional democracy.
Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, who is developing an international reputation, explains why he supports boycotting Israel: “As long as we are under this occupation, and this atrocity, and brutality, I will not do any joint event with any Israeli artist or citizen. Because he is a soldier. Whatever his work– artist, doctor, engineer, journalist—he served in the IDF, or will serve in the IDF, or serves in the IDF.”
A wrenching image of a wounded Gaza protester being carried away by a horse-drawn cart is one of four commemorating the day of the massacre last May in Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 photos of the year.
A NYT report that an Israeli intelligence firm with government connections reached out to the Trump campaign in 2016 to manipulate the election process is more evidence of rightwing Israeli interference in the 2016 campaign, supported by Sheldon Adelson’s millions. And Israel has reaped huge rewards: the killing of the Iran deal and move of the embassy to Jerusalem.
“The world has a name for that form of government that’s codified in [Israel’s] nation state law, and it’s called apartheid.” In speech, US Rep Betty McCollum, who represents St Paul, MN, and its suburbs demonstrates incredible leadership. The Democrat is also sponsoring groundbreaking legislation to cut off US funds that go to Israel’s detention and torture of children.
Palestinian author Reja-e Busailah says he loves the United States although he has witnessed Islamophobia here for 60 years, going back to an ad on a NY radio station, “Give a dollar and kill an Arab.” At 89, retired in Indiana, he reflects on the Nakba that deprived him of his home, and on what terms he would return to the land of his birth. Spoiler alert: Equality.
A video posted by a Gaza journalist today appears to show the moment that Mohammed Khalil, a young Palestinian football player, was shot in the leg, destroying his knee, and his career, evidently by an Israeli sniper while the young man was merely video’ing himself near the Israeli border last Friday. Israel killed 17 Palestinian protesters and wounded hundreds more.
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Palestine and it is not for sale for gold or billions,” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas says after Donald Trump says he took Jerusalem “off the table” and will now strip Palestinians of 100s of millions in U.S. aid for refusing to negotiate.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced in the Knesset that the Trump administration warned Israel that imposing sovereignty over the West Bank would cause an “immediate crisis” between the U.S. and Israel.
In January, 2016, an Israeli military court sentenced 5 youths from the West Bank village of Hares — Mohammed Kleib, Mohammed Suleiman, Amer Souf, Tamer Souf, and Ali Shamlawi, known internationally as the Hares Boys — to a grueling 15 years in prison for manslaughter for a crime that did not even take place. A free 39-page e-book, The Hares Boys, From Palestine to Israeli Prison, tells their story and the history of Israel’s imprisonment of Palestinian children.